— from the ghazal beginning “baare duniya mein raho gham-zada ya shaad raho”, Mir Taqi Mir (1723–1810)
About this quote
देवनागरी
बारे दुनिया में रहो ग़म-ज़दा या शाद रहो
ऐसा कुछ कर के चलो याँ कि बहुत याद रहो
اردو
بارے دنیا میں رہو غم زدہ یا شاد رہو
ایسا کچھ کر کے چلو یاں کہ بہت یاد رہو
English
Live in this world sorrowing or glad, as you please — but do something before you leave by which you will be long remembered.
What it means
The rare Mir couplet that gives advice instead of registering pain, and it gives it without moralising: he does not say be happy, or be good. He says your mood is your own business, but leave a mark. Baare here is closer to “at any rate” than to any English single word.
What it teaches you
Mir’s structure is worth copying deliberately: he releases you from one obligation in order to hold you to another. Whether you are sorrowing or glad is explicitly not the matter at hand — so if you have been treating your mood as the project, working on being content, waiting to feel settled before you begin, Mir would say that is your own business and beside the point. The demand is only that something you make or do outlast your leaving. That reframing is practical, because mood is largely not under your control and work mostly is, and it also means a bad year disqualifies nothing. Baare — roughly at any rate — is doing exactly this job: setting the whole question of happiness aside as already settled.
अर्थ और सीख
ख़ुश रहो या ग़मगीन — वो तुम्हारी मर्ज़ी। मगर जाते-जाते कुछ ऐसा कर जाओ कि लोग याद रखें। मीर का यह शेर नसीहत देता है, पर उपदेश नहीं।
अपनी ख़ुशी या ग़म को ही असल काम न बना लें — मीर उसे आपकी निजी बात कहकर एक तरफ़ रख देते हैं। शर्त सिर्फ़ इतनी है कि जाने से पहले कुछ ऐसा कर जाएँ जो आपके बाद भी रहे।
Where it comes from
Verified against the collected work of Mir Taqi Mir (1723–1810) on Urdu Wikisource, in the poem beginning بارے دنیا میں رہو غم زدہ یا شاد رہو (source). Devanagari transliteration and English rendering are our own.
